Mud flung at Bill Shorten by rabid right shows he's a threat to Coalition

Mark Latham

It had to come, the character assassination of Bill Shorten. The Opposition Leader has been doing too well in the polls for Australia's right-wing hunting pack to leave him untouched.

Listen to any radio shock jock or ranting TV host and the drum beat has started. The hunting pack's star witness is a former Victorian Australian Workers Union official, Bob Kernohan. Earlier this month, he told the trade union royal commission that in the mid-1990s Shorten (then aged 28) urged him to ignore the rorting of union funds. This is precisely what the feral right wants to hear. It's a chance to smear Shorten and practise the politics of personal destruction.

As ever, the Prime Minister's lickspittle, Andrew Bolt, is leading the chase, asking, with mounting frustration: "How come the mud isn't sticking to Bill Shorten?" Bolt's News Corp colleague Jason Morrison has gone a step further, calling on the Labor leader to stand aside. In the way of these things, we can expect to hear a lot more about Kernohan's allegation in the lead up to the next election. Already, 2GB has it on a continuous replay loop. But how credible is Kernohan and his testimony to the royal commission?

A significant part of his evidence was seriously flawed, revealing a delusional figure who has reconstructed the memory of major events in his life. In wanting the mud to stick, Bolt is relying on someone who contradicted himself under oath. The details are set out in the commission's transcripts. A big part of Kernohan's public persona has been to portray himself as a whistleblower, the only honest man in the Victorian AWU 20 years ago.

At the height of attempts to silence him, he claims to have been bashed by union thugs in July 1999. In his sworn statement to the royal commission, Kernohan said that three men had set upon him in the outer Melbourne town of Melton, telling him to keep his "mouth shut" and to "stop talking to the press, you grub". Counsel assisting the commission Jeremy Stoljar seemed sympathetic to Kernohan's plight, complaining of how he had been "marginalised and victimised" as part of "the mistreatment of whistleblowers".

There's just one problem with this account. In an addendum to his witness statement, Kernohan attached his sworn statement to the Victorian Police tendered the day after the Melton bashing. In this version, two men attacked him, screaming out "give us your wallet, you prick" and "where is your money?" According to Kernohan, "they yelled this out several times". There was no mention of union intimidation. The incident was purely a robbery. The statement was signed off as "true and correct", acknowledging that any falsehood was "liable to the penalties of perjury".

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Kernohan, in effect, has exposed himself as a fantasist – someone who, years later, has looked back on the Melton robbery and reframed it as a political event. He has converted an act of theft into something that matches his self-image as an AWU martyr. More worryingly, at the royal commission, he admitted to mental breakdowns and bouts of alcoholism – confirmation of how this troubled character was in no fit state to give evidence.

An obvious question needs to be asked: why did the commission allow Kernohan to testify? Stoljar and the royal commissioner, John Dyson Heydon, had an advance copy of his witness statement, from which it was clear he was about to give seriously flawed evidence. Anyone of average IQ would have seen the contradiction between Kernohan's 1999 police statement and his 2014 affidavit.

I believe an element of exploitation was involved. In their determination to fulfil their charter of uncovering problems in the Labor movement, Heydon and Stoljar appear to be willing to hear from anyone brandishing anti-Labor allegations, no matter how disreputable or unstable they might be. The commissioner and his assistant have disgraced themselves, as have the media urgers close to Kernohan (such as Morrison) who have exploited the poor man for political purposes.

Just like the Melton incident, Kernohan's recollections about Shorten have evolved over time. When he signed a statutory declaration in August 2010 alleging AWU rorting, his main target was Julia Gillard (who had recently become prime minister). Shorten was written up as a witness to Kernohan's claims, with no mention of impropriety. This confirms one of the golden rules of hunting pack politics: the intensity of the allegations against Labor MPs is in direct proportion to the threat they pose to the Coalition. Regrettably, the royal commission has become a star chamber. It's as if Stoljar has divided his witness list into friendly and hostile witnesses. The former are given a soft ride, especially if they claim to be whistleblowers.

On the first day of the commission’s hearings, for instance, Stoljar nursed another discredited figure, Ralph Blewitt, through his evidence. Most of Blewitt's statements were unbelievable, but Stoljar had him on life support, at no time excoriating the dozens of inconsistencies and convenient memory lapses presented to the commission. Welcome to Tony Abbott's Australia. A place where extreme legal power has been conferred on a Tory commission airing allegations against Labor leaders, past and present, from witnesses who are all over the shop.